The $90 billion mining tech revolution. Page 14 TECHNOLOGY
bi G H i TTE rs
Meet the entrepreneurs shaking up the science industry. Page 18
i NNOVAT i ON
Brace yourselves
It’s a tough journey from lab bench to market. Page 30
ENV ir ONMENT
Fighting ferals
The battle to contain Australia’s ‘river rabbits’. Page 26
HEALTH
The link between anaemia and Alzheimer’s disease. Page 6
Why Asia is the major new market for Australian ingenuity, with CRC spin-offs paving the way
ICRAR is driven by the nation’s brightest scientific and creative minds. From instrument design and construction to massive data processing and computing support, we’re putting all the pieces of the universal puzzle together. For more information visit us online at www.icrar.org
Cooperative Research Centres have an impressive list of achievements, but when it comes to future innovations on a global scale, strategy is key, says Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb
There are many examples of innovation and collaboration within the Cooperative Research Centres Association and it is important that we celebrate these successes.
In these pages, you will read about smart water gates assisting drought-affected farmers, optical products to slow the progression of myopia in children and a project to turn algal blooms into natural soil conditioners.
The question is: how do we replicate these successes on a scale sufficient to secure a more prosperous future for Australia and contribute to global knowledge?
Being an innovative country is about more than just addressing the pathways and potential barriers between research and industry, as significant as they are. It requires a strategic, long-term vision for how we manage the transition of the next 20 years.
We must know what our plans are for: education, innovation, international collaboration, new knowledge, and community
engagement. We must know what we intend to do and what we are trying to achieve.
Other countries have in place a strategic whole-of-government approach to science. This includes countries with different political and economic systems, like China and India, with whom we have research and development links.
While different, the various approaches have common themes:
• Equipping their education system/s to prepare their future workforce for growing reliance on science, technology, engineering and mathematics;
• Ensuring a steady flow of new ideas, and encouraging innovation;
The question is: how do we replicate these successes on a scale sufficient to secure a more prosperous future for australia?
A recent analysis of the 33 OECD countries showed that all but three had a strategy for science and/or technology development and transfer. Australia was one of the three that didn’t. We are outperformed by most OECD countries on business collaboration with higher education or public research agencies.
• Aligning research and innovation with areas of advantage and national need;
• Forming international alliances to address shared priorities and challenges.
Australia needs a strategy for the development and growth of science and innovation. The future is too important to leave to chance alone.
14 The next big mining boom is tech
With ore qualities dropping, Australia must look to improved technology to tap into further wealth from resources. This presents a unique opportunity for industry.
18 Asia focus
A revolution in the commercialisation of science ingenuity is taking Australian ideas abroad — with a strong focus on reaching the Asian market and furthering our R&D ties with our nearest neighbours.
SPOTLIGHT: ICRAR
23 Asia alliance key to world’s biggest telescope
Designing the brain of the world’s biggest telescope is a huge project involving global R&D and industry input. Australian scientists are working with world players to realise this massive task.
26 New tools in the fight against fish ferals
DNA detection and virus research are two tools being used by scientists battling to control the proliferation of feral fish in Australian waters.
SPOTLIGHT: ANSTO
27 A new climate of collaboration
Avenues of scientific teamwork in Asia are multiplying for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
5 Engineering collaborations drive new auto research in Australia
6 Alzheimer’s linked to mystery anaemia
7 MicroRNAs key to low-stress chickens
8 Polymer technology paves the way for innovation in agriculture
8 Breeding better dairy herd fertility
9 Conquering children’s cancer
10 Support for overseas research and development
11 Stopping runaway trains
GROWTH FACTOR
12 Project yourself
Six transferable skills you didn’t know you had; making use of waste in the seafood industry; and five hot-shots winning recognition in research.
With 35 years’ experience and access to world-class facilities, ANSTO Minerals provides practical solutions and innovative technologies that deliver financial and environmental benefits to the mining and minerals processing industries.
ANSTO Minerals’ expertise covers radiation safety, chemical engineering, metallurgy, mineralogy, chemistry and geology. ANSTO Minerals provides consulting and process development services, as well as collaborative and contract research in a number of general areas including uranium ore processing, rare earth processing, radioactivity control and management, and novel flowsheet design.
BIG PICTURE
28 Water smart cities
Work at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities will play a vital role in safeguarding the water supplies of our cities, managing our waste as a resource and protecting cities from floods. CEO Tony Wong talks about the future of urban water.
NEXT BIG THING
30 Brace yourselves
It’s a tough journey from the lab bench to the real world but it’s one worth taking. Craig Cormick explains why we need to work harder to reap the rewards of innovation.
The Malaysia-Australia Free Trade Agreement has paved the way for collaboration between the two countries, including a lucrative deal for Australia to design and co-manufacture electric buses.
The agreement follows a commitment by Malaysia to cut its carbon emissions by 40% by 2020, and to have 2000 “green buses” operating in major cities to reduce emissions from traffic congestion. In the capital, Kuala Lumpur, more than 300,000 commuters use buses every day, and the government is hoping energy-efficient public transport will attract around 750,000 users by 2020.
The Automotive Australia 2020 Cooperative Research Centre (AutoCRC), which signed the deal in February 2014, is also developing lithium ion batteries and commercial vehicle electronic
tracking systems as part of the agreement with the Malaysia Automotive Institute and Malaysian transport provider, ARCA Corporation.
One of the AutoCRC’s partners is Swinburne University of Technology’s Electric Vehicle Research Group, headed by the Dean of Swinburne’s School of Engineering, Professor Ajay Kapoor. Commenting on the deal, Kapoor said that – despite closures across Australia’s car manufacturing sector in Victoria and South Australia in March –there is still a promising future for Australia’s automotive engineers in niche markets that require advanced technology and innovative design.
“For example, there are some very successful bus manufacturing companies in Australia,” he said. “These companies design and manufacture components that can
be assembled elsewhere, so there is potential to build both local expertise and export markets.”
Kapoor said the AutoCRC will begin delivering electric buses and advanced transport technology to Malaysia by 2016. The first prototypes will be available in 2015.
The buses will have a range of up to 200 km and will initially be used in Malaysia’s administrative capital, Putrajaya, and the Langkawi islands, before being introduced to Kuala Lumpur’s busy traffic systems. China and Indonesia have also expressed interest in the buses, following the rollout in Malaysia.
Although unrelated to his own work, Kapoor pointed to a further example of engineering opportunities bring carved out in the transport industry in Australia: AutoCRC’s success in designing and producing the world’s first
lightweight plastic automotive mirrors through accessing research capabilities at the University of South Australia. The polycarbonate mirrors are manufactured in South Australia and exported to the United States, where Ford uses them in their F150 pick-up trucks.
The mirrors are coated with a reflective surface of a thickness of less than 5 microns – around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. The shatterproof mirrors not only improve vehicle safety but are also 50% lighter than glass mirrors. The manufacturing process is simpler than for glass mirrors, and a 15% reduction in the overall mass of the mirror assembly is estimated to cut carbon emission by 400,000 tonnes over five years.
– Rosslyn Beeby
www.autocrc.com
As well as brain abnormalities, now blood changes have also been discovered in Alzheimer’s sufferers.
Melbourne researchers have discovered a link between the brain disease Alzheimer’s and an unusual form of anaemia.
The research was led by the Chief Scientific Officer of the CRC for Mental Health, Professor Ashley Bush, who was following up on his 2010 finding that iron was processed abnormally in the brains of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Wondering whether AD might disrupt iron chemistry elsewhere, Bush – a molecular biologist and psychiatrist – looked for evidence in the blood of AD sufferers.
More than 250,000 Australians are currently afflicted with AD and that number is expected to double by 2030. The disease, which is most prevalent in people aged 65 and older, is irreversible
and builds over decades. The first symptom is often memory loss that progressively worsens. Confusion, as well as personality and mood changes, may follow. Patients often end up in nursing homes, where typically about half the residents have AD.
Many elderly people are also prone to a mysterious form of anaemia that is currently untreatable. Anaemia is often caused by iron deficiency, leading to reduced levels of the iron-rich protein haemoglobin that transports oxygen in the blood and can result in severe tiredness. The cause of the treatment-resistant ‘idiopathic’ anaemia often found in older people, however, is unknown.
With funding from the CRC, Bush and his team at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne
analysed data from blood tests undergone by the participants of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) study of ageing, which is following 1112 older people. Most are healthy, but 211 have AD and a further 133 have mild cognitive impairment. The results of the analyses, published in Molecular Psychiatry in January 2014, showed the blood of AD sufferers was different. People with AD had lower levels of haemoglobin.
“Unless the precursor [needed to make haemoglobin] is exactly in the middle of the normal range, there is a tendency for haemoglobin levels to drop precipitously. The relationship is very brittle,” said Bush.
A person is classified as anaemic once haemoglobin levels drop below a threshold.
The study showed people with AD were 3.4 times more likely to be anaemic than people without AD. Anaemia can cause cognitive impairment in its own right, Bush explained, and could be adding an extra burden to AD patients.
“This finding puts a spotlight on this idiopathic anaemia, which is a mystery and we’re suggesting that it’s not an innocent thing – maybe it contributes to AD,” said Bush. “AD may not be just a brain disease. It may affect other parts of the body.”
Bush plans to investigate what is going wrong with haemoglobin production in red blood cells and hopes this may lead to ways of treating this form of anaemia and a better understanding of AD.
– Clare Pain
Scientists at the Poultry CRC are using microRNAs to develop a non-invasive stress test for chickens.
Too much stress hinders egg production, so it is important to find out how hens are coping, whether they live in cages or are free-range – which is what Dr Tamsyn Crowley from Deakin University in Melbourne is trying to determine.
The answer may lie in small non-coding RNAs, known as microRNAs, found in the eggs laid by hens. MicroRNAs have
been used in recent biomolecular studies of both humans and animals as biomarkers for diseases such as cancer. They are found in blood cells, saliva and milk. The scientists believe they will also be present in eggshells.
Scientists traditionally test the level of the hormone cortisone in a chicken’s blood to determine its level of stress, as cortisone is released by the adrenal glands to prepare the bird’s body for fight or flight. There are some issues with this, however, as the hormone is released in response
to a wide variety of stressors, from a change in feed to a variation in temperature, said Crowley.
“Just like us, if chickens get sick, that’s a potential stressor,” she said, further explaining that they also don’t like any alterations in their environment, such as being moved around or changes in their social structure. “One of the biggest stressors for chickens is change, they don’t like change.”
The very act of taking blood for the test also causes stress, which can affect the bird in less than a minute and be translated
into the results. Crowley and her fellow researcher Dr Anthony Keyburn from the CSIRO are aiming to bypass this invasive procedure by monitoring stress signals from the eggshells instead. The microRNAs will be used to develop a profile of the birds’ stress levels. Once the scientists have developed the profile and are satisfied that the test works, they will begin testing eggs from different farming conditions.
– Laura Boness
www.poultrycrc.com.au
With the rising global population, Australian farmers are facing increasing pressure to produce higher crop yields. This has created a number of sustainability and environmental challenges, including water scarcity, reduced soil nutrients and erosion. Research institutions including the CRC for Polymers (CRC-P) have been researching ways to harness polymer technology in demanding agricultural situations in order to improve environmental sustainability.
Professor Graeme George, leader of the CRC-P research program on Water and Food Security, and his team have developed new degradable polyethylene films for use in crop propagation. This technology has been licensed to Australian company Integrated Packaging. The new polyolefin films include additives that provide greater control over the timing of film degradation. The films are mechanically applied over seed at the time of planting in order to increase germination rates and water conservation before degrading, allowing the plant to break free of the temporary greenhouse created by the film. Their use can improve the re-establishment of native woodlands and the yields of crops such as maize. The commercial implications of this new technology are far reaching. The success of the technology was recognised by the Chair of the CRC-P, Dr Peter Coldrey, who awarded the development team a Chairman’s Award in Commercialisation.
Another CRC-P project with promising commercial prospects is a new polymer system for reducing evaporation from water storages. A team led by Professors David Solomon and Greg Qiao from the University of Melbourne has developed the system, which involves a surface active monolayer-polymer complex that conserves water by reducing evaporation from dams, reservoirs and other large water bodies without harming aquatic life or water quality.
Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick’s Partner Ray Evans and Senior Associate Dr Grace Chan have filed patent families relating to the evaporation control polymer system and degradable polymeric film.
Ray Evans, Partner ray.evans@pof.com.au +613 9622 2261
Grace Chan, Senior Associate grace.chan@pof.com.au +613 9622 2266
Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick is a full service intellectual property firm and has worked extensively with CRCs
www.pof.com.au
Collaborative research by the Dairy Futures CRC, industry and farmers is aiming to increase fertility for Australian dairy herds by 10% and boost annual dairy farm profits by $2500 per farm, per year.
Declining fertility is a global problem for the dairy industry. In Australia, where herd fertility has been falling since 2000, the phenomenon has a particularly significant impact because the industry is based on cows calving in the right seasons when pasture growth is at a maximum. The challenge is magnified by low heritability: a fertile cow may not necessarily produce fertile offspring. The upside is that there are big genetic differences between animals with the best and worst fertility.
To examine herd fertility, the CRC is using support from farmers and dairy businesses, and worldclass science at one of Australia’s newest bioscience facilities: AgriBio, the Centre for AgriBioscience, in Bundoora, Victoria. In the largest national study of its kind, the CRC is working with industry and Victoria’s Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) to collect more than a million mating records.
“We knew dairy farmers would probably have at least five to six years of fertility records relating to
herd management, but a lot of those weren’t available for our efforts to improve fertility,” said DEPI senior researcher Dr Jennie Pryce. “We began to work closely with farmers, data processing centres and the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS) to unblock the data pipes.”
Between October and December 2013, farmers submitted more than 850,000 cow mating records – more than double that obtained by ADHIS during the previous three years. Pryce said this information bonanza followed an upgrade of herd management software, which made it easier for farmers to share data electronically.
The Dairy Futures CRC’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr David Nation, said they will use a broad range of DNA-based analyses to identify genetic causes of infertility. This includes the use of entire DNA sequences of male ancestors and DNA analysis of 25,000 cows. It also involves global collaboration with research and industry partners who are addressing similar issues in their countries.
“We now have the scale we need to overcome this adversity and deliver outcomes to over 7000 dairy farmers in Australia,” said Nation. – Rosslyn Beeby
www.dairyfuturescrc.com.au
Research into childhood cancers is receiving a huge boost, with the Cooperative Research Centres Program announcing in February 2014 that it will fund the Cancer Therapeutics CRC (CTx) for a further six years.
Nearly three children die of cancer in Australia every week, making it the most common cause of childhood death from disease in this country, said Professor Michelle Haber, who heads Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA). Cancer is second only to injury in claiming children’s lives.
As a result of its participation in the CTx, Haber’s institute has been entrusted with $2.2 million annually in cash and in-kind support for the next six years.
CTx funding is essential, Haber explained, because drug companies
show little interest in developing drugs for children’s cancers.
Approximately 1% of all cancers occur in children and although each death is particularly cruel, with many years of life lost and devastation for families, potential patient numbers are small.
CCIA houses Australia’s only drug development centre targeting children’s cancers. “We propose to develop at least one drug that is specifically for children’s cancers,” said Haber. The drug discovery program has been underway for only three years but, she said, has already produced some “very exciting” leads.
Another key project is tailored medicine. CCIA is able to take tumour cells from a child, determine their genetic make-up and then test the cells against 3000–4000 different drugs. By doing this, Haber’s team hopes to
be able to identify the best drug to tackle each child’s cancer and plans to try this approach in the 150 Australian children a year most at risk of death from cancer.
Childhood and adult cancers are very different. “Children’s cancers are primarily tumours of embryonic origin,” said Haber, explaining that usually something has gone wrong before birth as cells have become specialised.
The types of cancer are also different. Leukaemia –a cancer of the blood – is rare in adults but the most common childhood cancer, with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) the predominant form.
“ALL is one of the great success stories of modern medicine,” said Haber. “In the late 1950s every child who was diagnosed with ALL would be dead within eight weeks.”
Now the survival rate for ALL is over 80% and the combination chemotherapy responsible for this success has also set the therapeutic approach for many adult cancers.
CCIA has contributed to pushing up the ALL survival rate. The institute developed a test to detect leukaemia cells in bone marrow, even when present at very low rates. About one in five children with ALL relapse after chemotherapy and face the highest risk of death. The CCIA test means these high-risk children can be identified and treated with more intense therapy.
“The result has been a doubling in these children’s survival rate from 35% to 70%,” said Haber. – Clare Pain
The Research and Development (R&D) Tax Incentive is the Australian government’s principal measure to encourage industry investment in research and development.
R&D activities conducted outside Australia may qualify for the benefit, but first they must apply for an overseas finding from Innovation Australia – an independent statutory board that administers Australian Government innovation and investment programs.
The R&D Tax Incentive is delivered by AusIndustry, a specialist program delivery division within the Department of Industry. AusIndustry delivers a range of business programs and initiatives, including the Cooperative Research Centre Program.
Developing a truly global product
Victorian start-up Bluechiip Limited has undertaken research and development as far afield as Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Italy. While most of its R&D takes place in Australia, overseas R&D has allowed the company to transfer knowledge from overseas to local engineers, as well as ensuring international compliance.
The R&D Tax Incentive has helped the innovative, ASX-listed company commercialise its next generation tracking and monitoring system for biospecimens – such as research samples, tissue, cord blood and stem cells that need to be kept at very low (cryogenic) temperatures.
“Claiming overseas R&D expenditure has benefitted Bluechiip a great deal, including allowing access to technology and knowledge which are not available in Australia,” said James Tan, Bluechiip’s Finance and Operations Manager.
“It has also allowed foreign expertise and experience to be incorporated into elements of our products, to ensure competitive design for manufacture and a truly global product.
“The R&D Tax Incentive has enabled Bluechiip to increase and speed up its development process. This has enabled the company to better tap into international knowledge and expertise, and gain access to facilities that are not directly available in Australia, or are only available in low volume scale facilities.”
For more information, visit www.ausindustry.gov.au call 13 28 46 or email hotline@ausindustry.gov.au
Australian and New Zealand rail operators are benefitting from research aimed at reducing the number of trains running stop signals.
This kind of incident, called Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD), can lead to delays and cancellations, five-figure fines for rail operators, and can cost the driver’s job. In rare cases, SPADs can also cause catastrophic accidents, resulting in injuries and loss of life.
Dr Anjum Naweed, a psychologist at the Adelaide campus of CQUniversity and part of the CRC for Rail Innovation, investigated driver attitudes and responses to SPADs via a series of focus groups with 28 drivers from Australia and New Zealand.
Naweed said SPADs are the industry’s “elephant in the room”, and a culture prevails in which the driver is solely blamed. Naweed’s research, however, pointed to a web of contributing factors, from work-related anxiety to organisational policy and practices.
“It’s not as simple as a train going past a red signal,” said Naweed. “In practice, it’s so much more complicated than that.”
The focus groups cited other factors contributing to SPADs, such as the time pressure placed on drivers by demands for efficient performance on increasingly busy rail networks. This increases driver anxiety and can conflict with safety measures, such as precautionary reductions in speed that allow a train to stop before a signal.
SPAD stakeholders, including drivers, controllers and management, also gathered for a series of workshops to discuss issues arising from the focus groups. This has prompted changes in operator practices, such as improved training and driver awareness, which have reversed the trends that previously saw SPAD events on the rise. One operator, Public Transport Services in South Australia, has reported a record 284 days without incident after an average of one SPAD per month in the preceding five years.
While Naweed’s research has been assisting the development of best practice guidelines for operators, rail manufacturing received a massive boost with the announcement of a $31 million Rail Manufacturing CRC. The CRC, funded in April 2014, will develop products, technologies and supply chain networks to increase the competitiveness of the rail industry. – Jude Dineley
www.railcrc.net.au
The number of fatigue-related injuries that the new CRC for Alertness, Safety and Productivity aims to reduce each year, saving the health industry $2 billion.
The estimated worth of technologies, products and processes that have been, or will be, produced by CRCs from 1991 to 2017.
$14.5 Billion
$19.8 Million
The amount of government funding announced for the new CRC for Space Environment Management, addressing space debris.
$3.5 Billion
112
The number of organisations that are essential participants in CRC programs.
The number of countries involved in CRC collaborations.
The figure the Australian Government has committed to CRCs between 1991 and 2013.
S tepping outside research
can be a daunting prospect if you’re a PhD or postdoc. But don’t overlook your training – your research career has equipped you with an array of skills that employers in the wider world will value.
1 teamworK
Today’s academic environment is far from the mythical lone researcher in an ivory tower. Your career will have seen you work as part of a team, be it in your lab or in collaborations across the world. As a team player, you’ll have built working relationships and networks, negotiated with others in a variety of situations, and given and received constructive feedback. You may also have supervised and mentored students and junior staff members.
3 writing exPertise
2 Project management
If you’ve completed a PhD, you have the perfect example of a project – or set of projects – where you identified goals, formulated a plan and schedule, adapted your plan when obstacles came up, prioritised tasks and met deadlines. In the course of this, you’ll also have developed the ability to work with limited supervision.
In your academic career, you’ll have written research proposals, progress reports, conference papers, work protocols and grant applications, and, of course, your PhD or Masters thesis. You can write clearly, concisely and persuasively in a range of formats.
4 verbal communication
Conference presentations, teaching, research group meetings, outreach activities and, if working in a clinical
environment, talking to patients, will have equipped you with the ability to speak clearly to a range of audiences. Being able to argue cases effectively and diplomatically will also be valued outside the lab.
5 Problem solving
From identifying topics and issues that justify investigation, to evaluating weird results you measured in the lab or sorting out bugs in your code, problem solving is an essential skill in research that is in demand outside academia. The ability find and analyse information from multiple sources, then make an informed judgement based on evidence, will stand you in good stead.
6 Personal qualities
Remember both the success stories and tough times of your PhD and subsequent research. Did qualities such as creativity, perseverance, self-reflection and knowing where to seek advice enable you to achieve a goal or help you out of a cul-de-sac in your work? These traits will bring you success in all walks of life. – Jude Dineley
Read more about making the most of your transferable skills in this Nature Jobs blog: bit.ly/1eeOwAS
ChOO Supply chain and quality Geraldtonanalyst,Fishermen’s Co-operative
AUSTRALIA’S SEAFOOD I n DUSTRy is the fifth most valuable of its food-based primary industries, with a gross production value of $2.316 billion in 2011-2012. Scientists such as Kerri Choo have helped add value by developing new products from under-utilised sources.
A graduate of Curtin University, Choo undertook her Honours studies with the Australian Seafood CRC in 2009, working with Abacus Fisheries to develop novel products such as stock from waste water and meat left over from the fishery process of cooking blue swimmer crabs before consumption.
“There’s a large amount of waste that’s generated from the seafood industry,” she explains. “A lot of that waste is still fit for human consumption.”
The water from the crab cooking process contains proteins, minerals and volatile compounds and has a good flavour profile, so Abacus Fisheries wanted to determine whether it was feasible to develop a stock from it. After extensive product development, Choo eventually produced two stocks that were tested and rated by a panel of volunteer consumers to improve the likelihood of market success prior to large-scale production.
After completing her Honours thesis, she participated in another study that aimed to both develop a new series of value-added Abacus crab products and test a new accelerated product development methodology, which enables small businesses to test products in the marketplace before committing to full-scale production. Using this methodology, the Australian Seafood CRC researchers used waste products from cooking blue swimmer crabs to successfully develop crab cakes that are now being sold commercially.
Choo now works as a supply chain and quality analyst at the Geraldton Fishermen’s Co-operative, where she is focusing on improving the supply chain to ensure a premium export product.
“It’s really exciting to see a project you’ve been working on for a long time launch as a successful product.”
– Laura Boness
www.seafoodcrc.com
Congratulations to the 2014 Early Career Researcher Award nominees. All recipients were awarded $1000 and gave five-minute presentations on their work at the CRC Association’s Innovating with Asia conference in Perth in May 2014, with the winning scientist given a further $5000 towards their research.
How gut microbiota contributes to health and productivity
Gut bacteria modulate the immune system and defend the host. However, too often the ecosystem of a healthy microbiota is thrown off balance by pathogenic bacteria. In poultry farms, necrotic enteritis caused by C. perfringens is on the rise, resulting in poor welfare and a loss of productivity due to damage to the intestinal wall. Some birds show a natural resistance to the disease and by investigating the bacteria in these birds we may be able to find a probiotic cure. Jake’s video: bit.ly/1iaB1o2
Understanding interphase formation in thermoset composite welding
Composite materials have become the preferred option for manufacturing aircraft structures. Luigi Vandi is working on a new technology patented by the CRC-ACS for welding carbon-epoxy materials. His PhD focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms at the interphase formed between these materials to ensure this process can be implemented on future aircrafts. Luigi’s video: bit.ly/1f5ycoM
Retaining the red in Australian lamb meat
The colour of lamb meat is crucial to customer appeal and strongly contributes to product value. Lamb meat currently has a shelf life of only two days before it is discounted due to browning, representing a major economic limitation to the Australian lamb industry. Honor Calnan’s PhD investigates factors influencing the oxidative process of lamb browning, identifying practical methods such as feeding vitamin E and selective breeding, that can improve the colour stability and, thus, value of Australian lamb meat. Honor’s video: bit.ly/1rmRJCT
Integrating a drug delivery system into bionic devices
3D printing is changing our life in many aspects, from 3D-printed food to airplane parts. Binbin Zhang is working on integrating a drug delivery system into the cochlear implant using 3D printing to prevent the detrimental post-surgery inflammatory response. Binbin’s video: bit.ly/1f8awjj
MICHAEL SCOTT – CRC for Optimising Resource Extraction
Evaluation of energy-efficiency, emission pricing and pre-concentration for the optimised development of a copper-gold deposit
This project evaluates the economic and production impacts from improvements in the energy-efficiency of mining and mineral processing activities and the introduction of emission pricing on the optimal development of a low-grade, copper-gold deposit in Australia. Michael’s video: bit.ly/1npZuIL
With ore qualities dropping, Australia must look to improved technology to tap into further wealth from resources. This presents a unique opportunity for industry, says Robin McKie .
a stark problem. The quality of the metals and ores dug from its mines – in particular, base and precious metals, such as gold and copper – have halved over the past 30 years. At the same time, the waste generated in extracting these minerals has doubled.
The nation, which depends heavily on its mineral wealth, has to work harder to access less ore and metal. Even more alarmingly, the problem has sharpened severely over the past decade, thanks to a mining boom triggered by the nation’s bid to fulfil China’s insatiable demand for minerals.
“Australia has some very mature mineral and metal resources and these have been mined aggressively over the past few decades, particularly the last decade,” says Professor Alan Bye, the CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resources Extraction (CRC ORE). “Inevitably, the quality of those resources has declined significantly.”
Today, Australian mine operators use 70% more energy than they did 10 years ago – because they have to dig deeper to access deposits. At the same time, outputs from mines have dropped. In 1970, goldmines produced 10 g of gold for each tonne of basic ore that was dug up. By 2000, this figure had dropped to 3 g and has since declined to under 2 g. For an industry that contributes $150 billion to the nation’s GDP, this is a worrying trend. Action is being taken – thanks to research programs at CRC ORE along with those at two other CRCs: Deep Exploration Technologies CRC (DET CRC) and CRCMining. Together, they are working on technologies aimed
“Scaling up operations – using bigger shovels or building mills – was effective in the past but that won’t work anymore. We have reached the limit of that approach.”
at revolutionising mining costs. These include sensors at the ends of drill bits, which will give instant analysis of ore quality; improved blasting and ore screening techniques; new methods for cutting into rock faces; the SmartCap, which has sensors to monitor an operator’s wakefulness and performance; and Coiled Tubing Drilling to replace the current methods, which are cumbersome, done section by section.
“We have to find smarter ways to mine our deposits of both base and precious metals,” Bye says. “Scaling up operations – using bigger shovels or building mills – was effective in the past but that won’t work anymore. We have reached the limit of that approach.”
explains. “By contrast, a single coiled steel tube – several thousands of metres long – is easy to put down a hole and bring back up again. Instead of taking a day to change a drill bit, it will take only an hour.”
Then there is the issue of cutting a rock core and sending it to an assay laboratory. “We are planning to get rid of that,” says Hillis. “Instead, we are making sensors to put behind the drill bit, and into the tube. These can analyse, in real time, the material that we are drilling and can tell us straight away if there are worthwhile amounts of gold or copper in it. It means you can stop drilling immediately if you find that a deposit is worthless. You don’t
“The export of mining technology is now as big as our entire iron ore industry.”
“MORE THAN 80% OF Australia’s mineral production comes from mines that are more than 30 years old,” says Professor Richard Hillis, CEO of the DET CRC. “We haven’t found enough new mines to develop – that’s why we are mining down our old ones so severely.”
The trouble is that new mines are difficult to spot. Those with easily identifiable surface features have already been found. New techniques are needed to find rich but inaccessible ore deposits, adds Hillis. “When we prospect at present, we drill deep down into the ground and take out a rock sample, which we send to an assay laboratory to see if it possesses promising amounts of copper or gold. However, each hole costs several hundred thousand dollars to drill and only one in 100 produces promising results. It also takes months to get your results back from the assay laboratory. That is why mineral exploration is currently so expensive – because it is so very, very slow.”
The solution is to develop cheap, easy-to-operate alternatives, says Hillis. These include the Coiled Tubing Drilling technique. “Drill pipes currently come in 3 m sections which makes it very laborious to change drill bits, Hillis
have to wait months for that assay report to reach you. It is going to revolutionise the way we explore for minerals and find new mines.”
These are not vague dreams, Hillis stresses. “At DET CRC, we are already testing coiled tubing drilling and have developed the kind of sensors we will need to analyse ores in real time. So yes, we are getting on with it.”
AT THE HEART OF mining is the basic issue of how to excavate rock.
Conventional machines do this by applying huge forces to push a cutting head into rock. Vast loads behind the machine head are needed to do this, however. As a result, supporting machines are extremely large, robust and expensive to operate.
To get around this problem, CRCMining has developed the Oscillating Disc Cutter (ODC). A tungsten carbide disc is rotated onto the rock surface in the same way that a household orbital sander is used on a floor.
Conventional machines push a cutter into a rock face and use compression to break up the rock. By contrast, an ODC uses tension
“It is going to revolutionise the way we explore for minerals and find new mines.”
to break down rock faces and it requires only a tenth of the energy used by a conventional machine, says Professor Paul Lever, CEO of CRCMining.
Faster and more flexible to operate, ODC machines are already appearing on the market. “This technology is going to be crucial in future when we are forced to open up mines that are far deeper and less accessible than current ones,” Lever says. “If we can double the speed at which we get to a deep ore deposit, we will transform the economics of mining.”
The human factor also needs to be considered, says Lever: “We asked mining companies what were their most common problems and operator fatigue came at the top of the list.” To address this, the
company began work on the SmartCap. Fitted with sensors that can assess the wakefulness of its wearer by measuring his or her brainwave activity, the SmartCap is expected to prove useful not just for miners, but for pilots, truckers and other professions.
“The crucial point is that if we find operators who are having problems keeping fully alert, we can help them with their lifestyles,” Lever explains. “Maybe they shouldn’t go to the gym directly before they go to work, but do it afterwards. Or perhaps they could change their eating patterns or alter their lifestyles in some other way. This technology has a human side.”
example of the revolution in mining technology taking place in Australia is provided by CRC ORE. Bye points out that 99% of the material produced from a copper mine is waste. “If we can cut that waste by only a modest amount we could make real inroads into improving returns.”
37%
The portion of CRCMining’s operation that is funded by industry.
33,000 km
The length of high-pressure steel pipelines in Australia, which Energy Pipelines CRC aims to make safer, and more efficient and reliable.
386,000
At the early stages of mining, there are handling points where miners could remove as much barren material as possible before processing begins, he says. This would ensure higher grade material is processed, bringing production costs down.
One project being pursued by CRC ORE is a technique known as smart blasting. “Blasting is used to isolate ores,” Bye adds. “With smart blasting, we release the greatest explosive energy where the highest grade ores are sitting in a rock mass. In this way, you make sure the best grades of material receive the most pulverising and are the most easily isolated as a result.
DET CRC’s total cash and in-kind funding from government and participants, making it the world’s best-supported independent research initiative in mineral exploration.
The number of people employed by the Australian mining equipment, technology and services sector.
$90
$120 million billion
The gross revenue generated by Australian mining equipment, technology and services in the 2012-13 financial year.
“It is quite elegantly simple. We are not talking about rocket science. On the other hand, you have to understand how rocks behave when you blast them.”
The ultimate goal is to turn mining into a modern manufacturing industry, Bye says. “30–40 years ago, the car and aerospace industries moved to continuous production lines. Mining is still a batch process, which has a huge amount of lost time in its production cycle. We need to turn it into a real-time business with constant measurements and controls.”
IMPROVEMENTS IN MINING techniques can lead to some surprising advantages, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by burying carbon dioxide (CO2) underground. Released when fossil fuels are burnt, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, raising atmospheric temperatures and triggering climate change across the planet. Engineers have proposed a solution: isolate CO2 as it is emitted from power plants and then pump it underground into depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers in order to prevent it from entering the atmosphere.
This process is known as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and it is being pursued avidly by the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC), which has launched demonstration projects. One CRC’s capture prototype uses potassium carbonate to isolate CO2 from the flue gases of power plants, a system which the CRC believes will prove cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the amines and other chemicals currently used to separate CO2. To isolate CO2, flue gases from power plants are bubbled through potassium carbonate solutions, absorbing the CO2, which can be isolated later on and pumped underground.
“Our heavy reliance on fossil fuels domestically, as well as our globally significant fossil fuel exports, make CCS technology
Australia is certainly not alone in facing headaches with its mining industry. The US, South Africa and Canada are also suffering from dwindling ore grades and soaring energy bills. Unlike these other nations, however, Australia has tackled these problems directly and is already developing strong export markets with devices such as the SmartCap.
“The export of mining technology is now as big as our entire iron ore industry,” says Lever. “I had a meeting recently with a leading Chilean mine company executive. He told me that in Chile they don’t buy the simple stuff from Australia – roof bolts or drill bits – but when they are looking for expertise, they come straight to us. They know they will get the best specialised equipment to make their mines most productive.”
Bye endorses this view: “We are working on all these developments not just to make Australian mines viable for the future. We are creating a highly profitable export sector that can be marketed round the world.”
www.crcmining.com.au www.detcrc.com.au www.crcore.org.au
highly important to Australia,” says Dr Richard Aldous, CEO of CO2CRC. “There are no major technology gaps or impediments to CCS. However, the technology is still in its early stages and costs need to be driven down.”
It is not just the processing of CO2 that is key to CCS, however. Making sure it can be transported safely from a power plant to a storage reservoir is another crucial area that demands considerable R&D effort, as Professor Valerie Linton, CEO of Energy Pipelines CRC, makes clear. Her company is working with scientists at Deakin University to lower costs and extend the life of pipelines — not just for CO2 but for oil and gas as well — by using materials more efficiently and tackling issues such as corrosion and degradation of metals more robustly.
“We have more than 30,000 km of pipeline that carries gas around this country,” says Linton. “It is a critically important infrastructure. Yet people know nothing about it — because it works so well. Our work is aimed at making sure our pipelines continue to operate to their maximum potential.”
www.co2crc.com.au www.epcrc.com.au
A revolution in the commercialisation of science ingenuity is taking Australian ideas abroad – with a strong focus on reaching the Asian market and furthering our R&D ties with our nearest neighbours.
The massive industrialisation and rocketing populations of China, India and other rapidly developing nations have triggered a major shift from the previous century’s Euro- and US-centric economy to a predominantly Asian one. Australia is well placed to cash in on this market, thanks to some special advantages, such as proximity and shared time zones.
But that might not be enough, some academics warn. The University of Melbourne’s Professor Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law, urges Australia to engage more effectively with these nations to avoid being a “bit player” in the Asian century.
Nevertheless, when writer Paul Hendy looked into the track record of Australian commercialisation in
Asia for this issue of KnowHow, he found we had already achieved some major technological successes – nine of which are profiled here.
One of Australia’s most renowned innovation success stories, Cochlear Ltd – which has had strong partnerships with three successive Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) – cites China as “a huge potential market”, according to CEO Dr Chris Roberts.
Meanwhile, VisionCRC, in partnership with Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre in China, has demonstrated a new generation of optical products that can slow the progression of myopia (short-sightedness) in children aged 6-12.
Rubicon Water – an offshoot of the CRC for Sensor Signal and Information Processing and a partner
of the University of Melbourne –has developed a water-management system in China’s drought-stricken Yellow River Basin that could improve water efficiency by up to 20% and be implemented at one-quarter of the cost of traditional systems.
Then there is MBD Energy, which is looking to tackle China’s unique $250 million algae problem along the Shandong coast between Shanghai and Beijing. MBD aims to turn those algal blooms into useful, natural soil conditioners.
Many other organisations built on CRC research or collaboration are looking to Asia for research and industry partnerships, clients and customers, taking Australian innovation to extraordinary new heights in Asia. – Heather Catchpole
Name: Rubicon Water
HQ: Melbourne
R&D: 15,000 products sold
Reach: Spain, Chile, New Zealand, France, Mexico, China, Italy, USA, Canada
At a glance: Established in 1995, Rubicon is a private, Australian-owned company with 200 employees and sales offices in the US, China, Spain, Mexico and New Zealand. It also has a research partnership with the University of Melbourne’s School of Engineering.
Water is the world’s most precious resource. Without proper supplies, farmers cannot meet the planet’s growing demand for food. Yet global estimates suggest there are 275 million hectares of land whose irrigation systems desperately need modernisation: 55–60 million in China, 25 million in the US, and 2.5 million in Australia. The market has proved fertile for Rubicon Water.
At sites across the globe, Rubicon Water’s installations measure and control water flow, making hundreds of small changes daily to send precise amounts of water to farmers when needed – the magic of algorithms, wireless telemetry, solar power, sensors, smart gates and valves.
“Our systems have now been deployed in China, Spain, Chile, New Zealand, France, Mexico, Italy, USA and Canada,” says Melbourne engineer David Aughton, who – with four enterprising colleagues with expertise in software development and irrigation system operation – founded Rubicon Water in 1995. Along the way, the group teamed up with the University of Melbourne’s Professor Iven Mareels and scientists of the CRC for Sensor
Signal and Information Processing, and jointly developed the Total Channel Control System for automating and revitalising outdated irrigation systems.
“That big team effort is ongoing with the university in systems control engineering and smart software for intelligently moving water,” adds Aughton.
Small-scale pilot projects kicked off in 2002 in Victoria’s irrigation districts and in Coleambally, NSW, followed by large-scale deployments in 2005 and now deployments in Australia, China and the US. Today, Rubicon Water delivers smart, green automation, sensor measuring and control technologies for drought-stricken irrigators from two offices in China, three in the US, and other strategically placed sales offices. Staff numbers have grown from 60 in 2008, to over 200 employees
in 2014. Aughton says that their state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Shepparton has exported 15,000 Rubicon gates, meters and products globally.
In Australia, Rubicon has multi-million dollar modernisation contracts in the Goulburn–Murray districts, in Murray Irrigation in southern NSW, in the Ord Valley in Queensland, and is involved in massive irrigation projects in China. The Fen River Irrigation District in China’s Yellow River Basin, for example, covers 100,000 hectares and supplies water on rotation to hundreds of thousands of small landholders growing crops and vegetables. Fen River Irrigation Authority Director, Li Ming Xing, says he “highly recommends” Total Channel Control, due in part to Rubicon saving 75% of the costs of alternative technologies.
Name: MiniFAB
HQ: Melbourne
R&D: 900+ projects
Reach: Asia-Pacific, Europe, USA
At a glance: Set up in 2002, the company now has more than 70 staff in multidisciplinary teams whose specialities include physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, manufacturing, and material sciences and who develop and manufacture custom, disposable, microengineered products for clients.
“this is the sort of clever design and manufacturing the nation is capable of and must pursue.”
Swin Burne u niver S ity physicist Professor Erol Harvey was told he was making a serious mistake by starting a commercial company without patents or intellectual property in 2002. But he and his business partner, Michael Wilkinson, persevered. Today, that company, MiniFAB, is a testimony to the foresight of their approach. They have more than 200 clients on their books covering the USA, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and have completed more than 900 projects, including sensor diagnostic tests for cancer and eye disease.
Consider the TearLab card: roughly the size of a thumbnail, it analyses tear fluid and allows doctors to diagnose dry eye disease in their consulting rooms. Every year, MiniFAB produces millions of these tiny smart cards for their client, TearLab Inc in San Diego. Other MiniFAB projects include disposable
miniature cards and cartridges that can detect pathogens in saliva or read DNA from blood. These microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices are “the heart of what we do”, says Harvey.
MiniFAB has also created small diagnostic sensors to monitor stresses and fatigue during Airbus A380 flight tests. The company is involved in the design and fabrication for Monash Vision Group’s breakthrough bionic eye. This chip, which contains a tiny wireless receiver, is to be implanted in patients in 2015, with the aim of directly stimulating their visual cortex with image data.
“Our clients include Fortune 500 multinationals in the health and medical field. Their own product development teams recognise and use our specialist knowhow and micro-engineering capabilities to turn their intellectual property into products,” says Harvey.
“Effectively, we have built a service company for clients globally, with satellite offices in the US and Europe.” Clients – who come from medical, food packaging and aerospace industries, among others – receive a full service, from concept design to prototyping, right through to manufacturing.
The ability to manufacture goods from the molecular to the macroscopic scale arose out of links with the CRC for microTechnology (which ran from 1999 to 2006), which Harvey says was the perfect vehicle to bring together universities with user-focused partners like Cochlear, Bosch and the Australian Institute of Sport. Since starting from scratch in 2002, MiniFAB’s contract revenue has increased an average of 20% each year, adds Harvey.
“This is the sort of clever design and manufacturing the nation is capable of and must pursue.”
Ev E ry y E ar, hug E blankets of algae – some larger than Sydney Harbour – spread along the Shandong coast between Shanghai and Beijing – the by-products of fish farms. Although not toxic, the blooms block sunlight and suffocate marine life. It costs the Chinese government around $250 million every year to clear its seas using chemicals to break down the blooms.
Chinese officials then visited MBD Energy’s works at Pacific Reef Fisheries, Ayr, in Queensland, where scientists are using biological processes to clean up wastewater from prawn farms. The delegation asked MBD Energy to develop a technique to harvest the Shandong algae and to turn it into biochar – a soil conditioner – which could fertilise the ground in the region naturally. The process would reduce use of synthetic fertilisers, cut costs and reduce water pollution.
A demonstration plant to remediate algae in a ceremonial lake is now scheduled to open in April and will be followed by large-scale projects along the China Shandong coast. MBD
Energy founder Andrew Lawson – who trained as a civil engineer – says entry into the Chinese market was helped by high-level political support.
In addition to its marine work, the company is developing techniques for using algal biomass to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from coal- and gas-fired power stations (a process known
“It makes sense to partner with the best and brightest in each area.”
as Bio-CCS) in Australia, Thailand, Canada and now China. Lawson attributes much of the company’s success to its early commitment to establishing its worldleading algae R&D centre at Townsville with the Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (AMCRC), and drawing on the expertise of James Cook University (JCU) algae researchers, Associate Professor Kirsten Heimann and Professor Rocky de Nys.
Name: MBD Energy
HQ: Melbourne
R&D: >$1 million/year
Reach: China, Thailand, Canada
At a glance: MBD Energy is a private start-up company established in Melbourne in 2006 that uses biological processes to deal with industrial waste. The company has 70 staff (including 50 based at its R&D centre in Townsville) and links with James Cook University and the AMCRC.
“AMCRC has profoundly increased our project research and demonstration capacity,” Lawson says, “and having access to JCU’s knowledge has allowed us to expand our horizons well beyond our early aspirations. It makes sense to partner with the best and brightest in each area and that’s what these relationships have enabled us to do.”
At Townsville, large prototype devices are tested under commercial conditions to clean up wastewater, carbon dioxide, methane and other industry waste. In the process, the system produces tonnes of algal oils, nutrients for animal feed and other valuable by-products, including plastics and potential new pharmaceuticals. In addition to this work, Lawson has overseen the construction of a 50,000 tonne/year biodiesel plant.
“The remediation of industrial wastewater alone is a multi-billion dollar industry and market,” adds Lawson.
“And we are more optimistic than ever about the role algae will play in helping to meet growing demand for energy, food and clean water.”
short-sightedness (myopia) is a health problem that threatens to sweep the world, but it’s one Associate Professor Padmaja Sankaridurg believes she and her colleagues can play an important role in controlling.
Myopia affects 27% of the world’s population. Research suggests these numbers will rise dramatically as people spend more time indoors and at their computer screens, taking the world’s current number of myopes from 1.45 billion to 2.5 billion by 2020.
“Take any country in the world, there seems to be something about the urban environment that contributes to myopia,” says Sankaridurg, Vision CRC’s program leader on the condition.
Myopia often occurs when children start school and can severely effect their education. At its worst, it also increases risks of developing more serious vision problems, such as retinal detachment
and glaucoma, which can lead to blindness. Hence, Vision CRC’s goal is to develop a new generation of optical products that can control myopia’s progression in children – a move that would consolidate Australia’s position as a global centre of excellence in understanding the condition.
In 2007, Adelaide-based Carl Zeiss Vision Australia was selected to produce spectacles for controlling myopia, after four years of R&D by Sankaridurg and her team at Vision CRC, who collaborated with researchers at the Brien Holden Vision Institute. They had been testing the theory that if lenses could directly focus onto the periphery of the retina –not just the central portion – then myopia progression would be slowed in young children and perhaps also in adults.
The first-generation prototypes and second-generation lenses were produced and evaluated with another vital CRC partner, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center
Name: Vision CRC
HQ: Sydney
R&D: $22 million, 5-year extension granted in 2010
Reach: More than 50 countries, including China
At a glance: Vision CRC was established in 2003 as part of the Cooperative Research Centres program with a grant of $32 million, which was followed up in 2010 with a further $22 million to carry out leading research in the areas of myopia, new biomaterials for vision correction, ocular comfort and vision care delivery. Vision CRC partners with 31 organisations.
(ZOC) at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, between 2007 and 2009. ZOC is China’s leading ophthalmic trial centre, says Sankaridurg. Importantly, ZOC can give access to the most vulnerable myope population – children. Through these key partnerships, the design evaluation at ZOC demonstrated an ability to slow the progression of myopia by 30% in children aged 6–12 years old. So far, Sankaridurg has overseen results from over 600 children, with trial proposals underway for another 500.
“Communication is the key for good collaboration and for ensuring success.”
In 2010, Carl Zeiss Vision Australia launched the cutting-edge technology under the MyoVision brand name into the Asian market, while the international collaboration reported on 12 months of results in a paper in the journal Optometry & Vision Science. “Communication is the key for good collaboration and for ensuring success,” Sankaridurg adds.
Designing the brain of the world’s biggest telescope is a huge project involving global R&D and industry input. Australian scientists are working with world players to realise this massive task, writes Jude Dineley.
AMAMMOTH TELESCOPE
comprising millions of antennas across Western Australia and Africa, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will help astronomers tackle some of the big unanswered questions of the universe. The complex ‘brain’ behind it all is “a system of systems”, says Kevin Vinsen, a University of Western Australia specialist in astroinformatics at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth.
Vast quantities of data from the telescope, due for completion in 2024, will necessitate heavy-duty computing infrastructure. The output from the Australian part alone, located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory 800 km north of Perth, will exceed a day’s Australian Internet traffic in less than 20 minutes.
“The main goal of the SDP is to bridge the gap between the telescope and the science,” says Vinsen’s colleague, ICRAR engineer Associate Professor Chen Wu.
ICRAR is part of the international collaboration designing the SDP – itself a multifaceted collection of hardware and software. Split into 10 work packages, the huge project is managed by 21 partners in 18 time zones with a total budget of $48.3 million. ICRAR is leading the Data Layer Work Package that will develop systems to manage the flow and storage of the telescope data.
“There will be a significant return to industry, come what may.”
The ‘brain’, called the Science Data Processor (SDP), will manage the capture of raw data at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth and the processing and archiving of this data into a form that astronomers around the world can access.
Industrial joint-funders, such as IBM, Cisco and NVIDIA, have been involved since the project’s conception. Commercialisation of SKA technology is expected to flow naturally from the arrangement.
“There will be a significant return to industry, come what may,” says ICRAR director Professor Peter Quinn.
The SDP project, and Data Layer in particular, involves collaboration with a Chinese collective of universities, research institutes and a company. Two such partners are Tsinghua University in Beijing, who are working on data
storage, and Inspur in Guangzhou, a contractor for Tianhe-2, the world’s most powerful supercomputer.
Collaboration on the SDP is part of wider investment by China in the SKA and radio astronomy in general. In a separate project, nestled in a natural bowl of limestone in the Guizhou Province in southern China, the largest single-dish telescope in the world is under construction. The Five hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is due for completion in 2016.
The FAST design was an SKA candidate that missed out, but still promises to be a powerful telescope. ICRAR is working with the Chinese institutions involved in FAST to learn from their experiences.
“We are particularly interested in working with the Chinese on FAST because of its enormous scientific potential, but also as a precursor to the SKA technology,” says Quinn.
as The world becomes more urbanised, with 70% of people now living in cities, “there is an urgent need to make them more sustainable, more energy efficient, safer and cleaner,” says Dr Marlene Kanga, iOmniscient’s director. “Our products enable this to be done intelligently using video data from different sources to complement text and numerical data.”
The company’s technology can analyse images from anywhere – TV, YouTube, security cameras and personal and public sources – and from that provide real-time responses in complex and crowded environments. The technology can be employed wherever there are cameras.
It pinpoints faces in a crowd, counts people, manages crowds, detects abandoned objects, recognises license plates, and matches drivers to their vehicles. The technology works in more than 120 languages, including Arabic scripts and numerals and can operate indoors or outdoors, even in the harshest climates. It also accepts inputs from audio and chemical sensors.
The system has already been installed in oil and gas plants from Azerbaijan to Mexico, in airports, on railway systems including China’s High Speed Rail network, on campuses such as the
Name: iOmniscient
HQ: Sydney
R&D: 26 patents covering multiple technologies
Reach: Azerbaijan, Canada, China, India, Iraq, Mexico, USA, Singapore
At a glance: Established in 2001, iOmniscient is one of Australia’s great software export success stories. 95% of sales are overseas and it has offices in Canada, Singapore, India and more.
University of San Francisco, and in Iraq’s Karbala mosque. As Rustom Kanga, CEO of iOmniscient puts it: “We can do everything that any video analysis supplier can do and do it better – and many things that no one else can do.”
Using mobile devices, iOmniscient’s software can also “monitor garbage and vandalism, understand traffic congestion, assess riots and commotions and provide inputs for big data systems analysing information relevant to a city,’’ adds Kanga. “The technology has its own ‘smarts’, with
the ability to minimise nuisance alarms, diagnose itself, and determine whether all cameras are working effectively.”
The starting point for this remarkable technology was a single patent acquired in 2001 from the CRC for Sensor Signal and Information Processing. Founders Marlene and Rustom Kanga and Ivy Li then invested extensively in the company to expand its scope and product range. Today, it has 26 patents covering multiple technologies. Sales are mainly made through major systems integrators such as Siemens and Motorola. They also partner with other major technology providers like Microsoft, EMC and Oracle.
The company is working on improving its technology through four engineering centres in Sydney, Toronto, Chennai and Singapore, where they continue to develop robust in-house technology, train postgraduates, and maintain a strong lead in the ownership of its intellectual property.
plastiC s rule our daily lives but they are often made from petrochemicals linked to environmental damage. With the urgency to find degradable, non-polluting alternatives, Plantic Technologies is emerging as a key player in the market.
Plantic Technologies uses starch derived from corn – a renewable source material – which is heated and put through a chemical modification process called hydroxypropylation to plasticise it.
The company is now one of Australia’s innovation success stories, having set up resin, film and sheet bio-manufacturing plants in Melbourne and Jena, Germany, backed by an R&D investment of more than $2 million per year.
It’s been a long process since the CRC spin-off company was formed in 2001, with several capital raisings and a listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2007 before privatisation in 2010. Sales have been doubling since 2012, thanks to new products.
“The new material consists of a sandwich of corn-based product between two thin layers of recyclable plastics, which results in a product with ultra-high gas-barrier film performance and increased shelf life for meat, fish and dairy,” says CEO Brendan Morris.
Coles supermarkets have adopted the range for their meat and dairy trays, as have Profish Food in the Netherlands, California’s Excelline Foods, and Multivac in New Zealand.
The crucial point about Plantic’s eco-plastic range is that its trays and sheets can be directly substituted for traditional materials in the supply chain.
Name: Plantic Technologies
HQ: Melbourne
R&D: >$2 million/year
Reach: Europe, USA, New Zealand, plans for Asia
At a glance: Established in 2001, Plantic Technologies is a bioplastics manufacturing spin-off from the CRC for International Food Manufacture and Packaging Science. It now employs more than 100 people.
Although most of their products feed into supply chains in Australia and New Zealand, the company’s sights are set on America, as well as new Japanese and Korean retailer channels. “We’re certainly not finished yet and we are working towards a fully biodegradable version of eco plastic,” says Morris.
Name: Cochlear Limited
HQ: Sydney
R&D: $500 million in 5 years (to 2014)
Reach: Africa, Europe, USA, Middle East, Asia-Pacific as of 2012
At a glance: Listed in 1995, Cochlear Limited is one of Australia’s most celebrated advanced manufacturing success stories. It employs 2700 people in 25 countries with manufacturing sites in Sydney, Sweden, Belgium and the US.
Co C hlear implants have become synonymous with Australia’s innovation history. Inventor and surgeon Professor Graeme Clark put the first implant into patient Rod Saunders in 1978. Since then,
Cochlear – the company that commercialised the cochlear implant – has been developing hearing products that improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and adults worldwide.
Today, Cochlear maintains its market competitiveness with aggressive R&D, research arrangements with 100 universities, and a strong leadership team. CRC partners have also helped maintain Cochlear’s position as world leader in implantable technology. For example, the Contour Advance Electrode array is now fitted to more cochlear implant patients worldwide than any other electrode design in the history of the field.
In April 2013, the CRC and Cochlear relationship entered a new era: the Australian Hearing Hub (AHH) at Macquarie University officially opened with an inaugural symposium managed by the HEARing CRC. The AHH will provide the CRC with a Sydney base, as well as access to new facilities, including the world’s only magnetoencephalographic imager (MEG) that can be used with cochlear implant users to explore hearing centres in the brain, and how they adapt to cochlear implant hearing sensations. They have also developed a new 3D, real-world acoustic test environment.
In return, the CRCs have gained access to a world-leading industry partner, and have helped contribute a value to Cochlear of approximately $120 million.
“This is a sensational example of what can be done through partnership,” says Associate Professor Jim Patrick, Chief Scientist at Cochlear Limited.
“The potential impact for hearing health from this innovation worldwide is enormous.” – Paul Hendy
DNA detection and virus research are two tools being used by scientists battling to control the proliferation of feral fish in Australian waters, reports Rosslyn Beeby.
THEY’RE KNOWN AS the rabbits of Queensland’s rivers. Tilapia were introduced into Australia in the 1970s through the aquarium trade, and these African exotics are now one of the country’s most destructive pest fish.
“They’re like little bulldozers in a river,’’ says aquatic ecosystems biologist Dr Dean Gilligan. “They dig around in the bottom of rivers, pull out vegetation, stir up mud and generally trash the habitat for native species. They’re also bullies. They’re extremely aggressive toward native fish – and, unfortunately, can breed up into a very large biomass, just like carp.”
Gilligan is a senior fisheries research scientist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and leads the CRC’s inland water pests research program, whose focus is to develop new technologies to detect and better control pest fish.
With researchers at the University of Notre Dame in Illinois, US, scientists from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and James Cook University have been working to develop a DNA surveillance technique to detect the presence of tilapia in creeks and other waterways.
The spread of tilapia has so far been confined to Queensland, where their range includes one of the state’s biggest river systems – the Burdekin. Several outbreaks in West Australian rivers near Geraldton were controlled thanks to early detection. Preventing the spread of the fish,
particularly to the Murray-Darling Basin, is a key concern of the CRC.
Tilapia can thrive in polluted and degraded waterways, and are fast, prolific breeders. Several were added to an ornamental pond at a hotel golf course in Port Douglas, near Cairns. Two years later, an eradication program removed 16 tonnes of tilapia from the pond.
Gilligan says the DNA surveillance technique being developed by the Invasive Animals CRC will enable fisheries officers to more efficiently detect pest fish, even in low numbers.
a risk assessment and move on to developing an eradication program.” The DNA surveillance technique was originally developed in the US to detect carp, which are now among Australia’s most destructive environmental pests. The CRC is also evaluating a naturally occurring virus found overseas as a biological control agent to reduce carp impact. Dr Ken McColl, a veterinary virologist at the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, is leading the research.
“They dig around in the bottom of rivers, pull out vegetation, stir up mud and generally trash the habitat for native species. They’re also bullies.”
“Instead of sending a whole team of people out with a boat, nets and a pile of equipment for several days, we can send one person, with a bucket, to collect around nine to 10 litres of water from a river,’’ Gilligan says.
The water is filtered, using fine filter paper, and when filtration is complete, the paper is analysed using a standard polymerase chain reaction laboratory test to detect DNA fragments.
“It’s not instantaneous. It takes a couple of days to filter the water and run the test, but it’s a much faster, more reliable [method] of measuring pest fish incursions in a river than using nets, lines and boats. Once the test result is back, we can run
McColl is conducting tests to confirm the findings that this carp herpes virus is effective and that it is safe for release into Australia’s waterways to control carp without affecting humans or native species. If successful, the strategic control program will open up new areas of research.
“We’d see unprecedented massive fish kills of carp in rivers, so we need to look at ways to manage collection and disposal of thousands of dead carp,” says Gilligan. “Do they go to council tips as landfill, or could they be ploughed into paddocks as fertiliser? That’s all part of the challenge of developing an eradication technique.”
www.invasiveanimals.com
There is a growing number of avenues of research parnerships in Asia for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
AustrAliA’s foremost nuclear science and technology organisation, ANSTO, is a key player in establishing safe practice in the field throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Recently, the organisation has set its sights on growing the scope of its collaborations in Asia.
In December 2012, ANSTO formed a joint research centre with the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP). The centre focuses on developing materials for extreme environments – in particular, structural nuclear materials for advanced Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. Unlike existing reactors, these next-generation reactors can run on waste fuels and they’re less likely to meltdown.
“the type of science we are undertaking is changing from fundamental research to research goals leading to real-world applications.”
“The type of science we’re undertaking is changing from fundamental research to research goals leading to real-world applications,” says ANSTO research fellow Dr Massey de los Reyes. “For example, the ANSTO-SINAP Joint Research Centre aims to understand how materials behave in extreme environments: fusion, aerospace, nuclear reactors.”
De los Reyes and colleagues aim to use the knowledge gained in the centre to develop new strategic research partnerships with industry and other organisations, looking at improving existing materials used in thorium reactors or developing entirely new materials for use in extreme environments. “This information could benefit a range of processing and manufacturing industries,” she says.
Eight of ANSTO’s 25 international partnerships have been formed with Asian countries, including Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan. These collaborations are opening up exciting new avenues of research. For example, the National Science Council Taiwan funded the SIKA neutron beam instrument currently under construction at the Bragg Institute in Sydney.
In the arena of basic research, ANSTO Principal Research Scientist Dr David Fink is collaborating with Mongolian scientists to study the past behaviour of Mongolia’s extensive glaciated mountains.
Working in Mongolia (inset and above), and with partners in Asia, is benefitting ANSto researchers such as Dr Massey de los Reyes (below left).
As glaciers shrink and grow, they leave evidence of their tracks in the form of rock piles known as moraines.
Dr Fink visited the region in 2013 with scientists from Israel’s Hebrew University and the University of Washington, US, to collect rocks from glacially-carved valleys in the Gobi Altai Mountains. To work out how long moraines in different areas of a valley have been exposed since the glacier retreated, Fink uses a technique called cosmogenic in situ surface exposure dating.
Using ANSTO’s accelerator mass spectrometer, the scientists can establish how long the rocks have been exposed and, therefore, the extent of past glaciation. These records fill in gaps in glaciallydriven global climate change covering a period from a few thousand years to about 100,000 years ago.
Fink and his colleagues have undertaken similar work in China and central Tibet in collaboration with researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science. “It really has revolutionised the way we can quantify landscapes,” says Fink. – Laura Boness
www.ansto.gov.au
Work at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities will play a vital role in safeguarding the water supplies of our cities, managing our waste as a resource and protecting cities from floods. Jude Dineley talks to CEO Tony Wong about the future of urban water.
“Cities in Australia and the world are all facing significant challenges related to growing populations, water being one of them. Liveability within the city is very much dependent on how we manage water,” says Professor Wong. Artificial wetlands constructed in our cities are one of the most promising technologies for a sustainable, water-sensitive future, providing a way to process stormwater run-off while creating public amenities. The bodies of water act as holding reservoirs, trapping sediments and pollutants, while vegetation provides a biofilter that removes and, in some cases, converts pollutants into harmless substances. The CRC for Water Sensitive Cities is working to improve the technology and adapt it to treat not only stormwater during wet spells, but also wastewater and polluted groundwater during dry periods
From bacteria in sewers to vertical surfaces of buildings, the urban environment has a wealth of water smart resources.
A space-saving way to beautify buildings, vertical gardens increase urban biodiversity and improve local microclimates. With water supplies under increasing demand, the gardens must be able to flourish using sustainable watering practices. Perth landscaping firm Deep Green and CRC partner, the City of Subiaco, designed a vertical garden for a local library. Tailored to the local climate and using native plants that require minimal water, it is the first vertical garden in WA and it thrived in its first summer. CRC researchers are developing technologies that will enable the gardens to treat greywater from the buildings for reuse in landscape watering and to flush toilets in the same buildings. In Australia, this could save up to 50% of typical household water usage. i
Eliminating nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium from wastewater is an energy-intensive process necessary to avoid toxic algal blooms in our waterways. But in the right formulation, these elements can be used to make a precious resource: agricultural fertiliser. Led by Dr Damien Batstone, researchers from the Advanced Water Management Centre at the University of Queensland are developing a technique that uses bacteria to extract the nutrients, transforming the waste into fertiliser. Initial testing on farms has been successful and, in an added benefit, the approach generates methane, which can be burnt to generate electricity, improving energy efficiency.
At CSIRO, we shape the future. We do this by using science to solve real issues. Our research makes a difference to industry, people and the planet. We ask, we seek, we solve. We are CSIRO. www.csiro.au
Curtin University’s partnerships with more than 90 institutions worldwide mean the University has established a strong presence in South-East Asia. In addition to our flagship campus in Perth, Western Australia, we have campuses in Singapore, Sarawak and Sydney, which further strengthen our international presence. www.curtin.edu.au
The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program, delivered by the Department of Industry, supports industry-led research collaborations addressing Australia’s major challenges. CRCs pursue innovative solutions to these challenges. www.crc.gov.au
This is a cost-effective approach to choosing the right eRA software… while avoiding time-wasting, costly mistakes! Watch this short video and discover how to choose the right electronic research administration software. www.choosingerasoftware.com
The University of South Australia focuses on end-user inspired research and industryinformed teaching. It heads three CRCs: Cell Therapy Manufacturing, Data to Decision, and Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment www.unisa.edu.au
At ECU, our focus on research is inspired by engagement and partnerships, and we take every opportunity to link with those in the many communities we were established to serve. www.ecu.edu.au/research
Murdoch University is committed to excellence in teaching and research within an international context and provides the ideal place to take the next step on your path of lifelong learning. www.murdoch.edu.au
The University of Newcastle is committed to working collaboratively with industry, business and government partners to deliver worldclass research and innovative solutions to real problems. www.newcastle.edu.au
The needs of our community organisations are varied and unique We’ve been involved with these organisations for nearly 200 years, so we understand the need for specialised community banking solutions and dedicated social sector bankers to enable their good work to continue. Talk to us about how we can support you. www.westpac.com.au/ socialsectorbanking
At the core of the key resource state of Australia, the University of Western Australia (UWA) ranks in the top 100 universities worldwide and is internationally recognised for its strong commitment to excellence in teaching, learning and research.
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It’s a tough journey from the lab bench to the real world but it’s one worth taking. Craig Cormick explains why we need to work harder to reap the rewards of innovation.
something like this. A research scientist has a brilliant idea. It’s developed into a product and commercialised. The general public love it and buy lots. The developers become wealthy. Many lives are greatly improved.
Sorry, let’s try again.
A research scientist has a brilliant idea. An arduous process follows to develop a product. Once it’s finally on the market, the public are afraid/suspicious of the underlying technology. Commercialisation fails. Few lives are improved.
Reality lies somewhere in between. Why? Let’s begin with a simple definition: innovation is doing clever stuff in a smarter way for a good outcome. It can be about a product, process or service. The impact can be grand or incremental.
To some, innovation means certain economic growth and social betterment. Examples of brilliant science leading to great products with huge consumer demand are smartphones, WiFi, organic light emitting diode televisions, robotics.
Planet-wide changes, such as population and climate, create unique challenges needing new solutions. Science, coupled with innovation, has the potential to create such solutions… if we get the innovation side right.
Unfortunately for Australia, 21st century innovation isn’t based on the good fortunes of geography, geology and climate. We’ve long relied on digging up resources and selling them overseas, or on fattening sheep and exporting them.
Now as Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist, articulates: “There’s no question that at some point our economy is going to have to shift and become substantially different from what it is now and be based on innovation.”
There is a clear and growing chasm between where we are and need to be. Australia’s challenge is to bridge that gap and move towards a sustainable economy less vulnerable than the one to which we are sentimentally attached that’s previously yielded the nation’s prosperity.
Australia does good science and is, sometimes, creative. But we have a poor record of commercialising good science and understanding innovation. The 2012 Innovation System Report points to a shortage of management education and innovative culture and highlights an imbalance between government versus
I’ve spent years in discussions with people opposed to GM, nanotechnology and vaccinations and their issues are rarely with the science. It’s more about personal values: from concerns about messing with nature and ethical fears over genetic information misuse; to opposition against monopolising agri-conglomerates. Align a product with public values and it has a better chance of a dream run. Clash with those values and there could be trouble. It makes sense to ask end-users what they want. If the public had been consulted about GM science back in the mid-1990s, for example, we may not have seen
“Australia has a poor record of commercialising good science and understanding innovation.”
private R&D spending. There’s a lack of: R&D growth in key areas; business access to publicly funded research expertise; mobility of researchers between academia and business; and a concerted national science, technology and innovation strategy.
Increasingly, research highlights the importance of incorporating consumer needs into successful innovation strategies to ensure acceptance of new products or services. There are examples – such as genetically modified (GM) crops as an agricultural productivity solution – in which developers provide answers where few people saw a problem. Alternatively, members of the public may believe research wrongly crosses an ethical divide – embryonic stem cell research is an example. Public rejection also occurs with solutions such as nanotechnologies, where misinformation about risks dominates information flow about the science.
It’s not just about selling products harder or better explaining the science.
agricultural firms using the technology to develop herbicide- or pesticide-resistant broadacre crops, but perhaps non-food crops that produce pharmaceuticals or healthier foods, with more public support. More contentious and innovative research is currently underway in Australia. The potential benefits are enormous. But their applications will need strong institutional support and community endorsement, skilled developers and sufficient funds for commercialisation. A lot of very clever people will need to cooperate in new ways to share old wisdom and new ways of thinking.
CRAIG CORMICK is Manager of National Operations, CSIRO Education
*This is an edited version of an article from The Curious Country, ANU Press, 2013.
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This issue went to press 1 May 2014
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